Cinder (book)
Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl. . . . Plot Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future. Summary Cinder is a cyborg living in New Beijing after World War IV, with her step-mother, Linh Adri, and her two step sisters, Linh Pearl and Linh Peony. Cinder owns a booth in the market place, where she works as a mechanic with the family's android, Iko. While she is working, she meets Prince Kai, who asks her to fix his android, Nainsi. After Kai leaves, the market is evacuated because a baker, Chang Sacha, has been infected. Prince Kai's father, Emperor Rikan, is currently sick with letumosis, otherwise known as the Blue Fever, a plague that is terrorizing the Commonwealth. There have been no plague survivors. While in the junkyard, Cinder, Iko, and Peony, who are looking for a new mag belt for Adri's hover car, They discover an old fashioned car, which Cinder plans to take home and repair. At the same time, Peony contracts the plague, and is taken away. When Cinder returns home, Adri is in grief and infuriated, blaming Cinder for her daughter's imminent death, thinking that, even though Cinder doesn't have the plague, she must have passed it from Chang Sacha to Peony. She has Cinder taken to the palace against her will, so that Cinder will be used for letumosis research. Cinder puts up a fight, taking out two med-droids, but is tasered by a third droid, and is taken in unconscious. Dr. Erland, a researcher in the palace, draws her blood, and when Cinder awakes, opens up her control panel and scans her, revealing that she is 32% not human. The doctor injects her with tagged letumosis pathogens, and waits for them to take effect so he can give her an antidote. But after several minutes, the Cinder's immune system kicks in, and the pathogens disappear. After drawing another blood sample, the doctor moves her to another lab, and comes to talk to her in person, instead of over an intercom like before. Cinder tries to attack him with a wrench hidden in her metal calf, but the doctor makes her feel tired and safe, and persuades her not to. Erland tells her that she is actually immune to the plague, and questions her about her childhood. Cinder tells him the truth - that she was told she was in a hover car crash that killed her parents when she was eleven, and was given a control panel, a metal hand, and a metal foot to replace her real limbs that she lost, and that she does not remember anything before her surgery. Cinder was taken to the Eastern Commonwealth, and Linh Garan, who soon died of the plague, became her guardian. Kai, discouraged at his father's condition, walks down to Dr. Erland's lab, but runs into Sybil Mira in the elevator. Sybil is the head thaumaturge to Queen Levana, who rules over a colony on the moon, and is on Earth to discuss an alliance between Luna and the Commonwealth. Kai discusses Princess Selene, Queen Levana's niece and the only heir to the Lunar Crown with Konn Torin after she leaves. Selene died in a fire when she was three, but there are many theories speculating that she is in hiding on Earth, since the only body parts found was her foot and a hand. Kai wants to find Selene and put her on the throne instead of Levana, but Torin tells him that Selene is dead, and to put the theories out of his mind. The doctor asks to do a small experiment on Cinder, and she agrees. Erland pinches the vertebrae above her shoulders, and does something, knocking her unconscious. Cinder wakes up to see Dr. Erland and Prince Kai over her. She is fine, and Kai helps her stand, asking what happened to her. Dr. Erland lies, and tells Kai that he was just adjusting her spine, and that the reason she is at the palace is that she is repairing a med-droid. Cinder exists the palace, promising to comm Kai when she had fixed Nainsi, and that she'd be back tomorrow to help Dr. Erland. She walks back to Adri's apartment, argues with Adri, and reunites with Iko. Cinder makes a plan to use the car she and Peony found to leave New Bejjing. And to also take Peony's ID chip and Iko's personality chip with her. During the night, Emperor Rikan dies. Minutes after his death, Kai receives a comm from Queen Levana who tells him that she herself will be coming down to the Common wealth to discuss and alliance with him, but finishes the message before Kai can protest. That morning, Cinder is awoken with a comm that informs her that Peony has entered the third stage of letumosis. Cinder goes to visit her in the letumosis quarentine to visit Peony, giving her a blanket and promising to find an antidote. On her way out of the quarantine, she encounters Chang Sacha, who makes promise to bring her son, Chang Suntaro, then dies. A med-droid wheeled up to Sacha's bed out took out a scalpel, and cut into Sacha's wrist. Cinder asks the droid what it is doing, and it answers that it is taking out Sacha's ID chip. At the palace, Cinder meets Kai in the halls and walks with him down to the lab. Kai tells her that the Lunar Queen is coming to Earth, and asks her to the annual ball. Shocked, Cinder declines. When Kai is gone, Cinder asks Dr. Erland about the med-droid who cut out Chang Sacha's ID chip. Quotes “Even in the Future the Story Begins with Once Upon a Time.” “Vanity is a factor, but it is more a question of control. It is easier to trick others into perceiving you as beautiful if you can convince yourself you are beautiful. But mirrors have an uncanny way of telling the truth.” "“He wouldn't even dance with Levana at the stupid ball if he could help it- to hell with diplomacy.” Praise "...Cinder is a timely and welcome re-boot of the fairytale, with Meyer changing up the rather archaic elements for a futuristic setting and a much less passive approach to the central character." - GoodReads review "...If you love fairy tale retellings, Asian culture, or just a really good story about a cyborg who only wants to be a normal teenage girl, give this one a chance. I don't think you'll be disappointed." - GoodReads review Category:Book